[sunnykerr]

U.S. McDonald's employee charged with selling heroin in Happy Meals: police PITTSBURGH -- An employee of a McDonald's restaurant in Pittsburgh was charged Wednesday with selling heroin in child-oriented Happy Meals to customers using the coded request "I'd like to order a toy." Authorities made the arrest after an informant told them that an employee was selling the drug. Customers looking for heroin were instructed to go through the drive-thru and say, "I'd like to order a toy," said Mike Manko, spokesman for District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. The customer would then drive to the window, hand over the money and get a Happy Meal box containing heroin in exchange, Manko said. Undercover agents set up a drug buy and arrested Shania Dennis, 26. Dennis denied wrongdoing to reporters as she was being led away in handcuffs. Authorities said they found 10 bags of heroin in a Happy Meal box and recovered another 50 bags from the suspect.

I gotta hand it to her.

That's actually pretty ingenious.

If no one had told on her, I can't imagine she would have been caught.

[quaist]

^ Well, one can't say that drug dealers aren't being creative these days.

An update on the Amanda Knox case:

Amanda Knox again found guilty in 2007 slaying of roommate in Italy FLORENCE, Italy -- American student Amanda Knox and her Italian former boyfriend were found guilty on Thursday in the 2007 slaying of her British roommate, Meredith Kercher. It was the third verdict in the case for Knox, 26, and Raffaele Sollecito, 29, who were found guilty in 2009 of killing Kercher. That conviction was overturned two years later on appeal, only to have the decision later overruled. Knox was not in court Thursday when Judge Alessandro Nencini sentenced her to 28-1/2 years in prison, more than the 26 years she received at her first trial. She refused to attend the second appeal, which opened in Florence last year, writing to the court from Seattle that she feared being "wrongly convicted." Sollecito was sentenced to 25 years. He was instructed to hand over his passport and forbidden from leaving the country before Italy’s supreme court confirms the sentence. If the guilty verdict is upheld by the supreme court, Knox could face extradition proceedings. But under Italy’s slow-paced justice system, the supreme court is unlikely to hear the case until April or May 2015, said Francesco Maresca, a lawyer for the Kercher family. Shortly before the jurors took the case Thursday, Knox's lawyers called on them to not overlook mistakes made by investigators. “We are anxious about your verdict,” lawyer Luciano Ghirga told the judge and jurors moments before they filed out to consider it. Prosecutors had called for sentences of 26 and 30 years for Sollecito and Knox, the exchange student from Seattle who shared a house in the Italian town of Perugia with Kercher, then 21, who was found partially naked in a pool of blood with her throat slashed. In his final summing-up, a second lawyer representing Knox, Carlo dalla Vedova, lambasted what he called "mistakes" made by forensic investigators. DNA found on a knife in Sollecito’s kitchen and attributed by prosecutors to Kercher could not be verified, Ghirga said. Losing his customary cool, he said, "Italian sentences don’t depend on probability, but on certainty." Knox and Sollecito spent four years in jail after their initial conviction before being acquitted on appeal in 2011. However, Italy’s highest court overturned the acquittal and ordered a new appeal, saying the first was riddled with “shortcomings, contradictions and inconsistencies.” “Amanda has been in touch with us daily,” said Dalla Vedova. “She is very nervous and worried since her life is again jeopardized." In an interview with Italian television Wednesday, Knox said she would be waiting at home with her family for the verdict with "my heart in my mouth." "The proof is in the facts. There is no proof I was there when it happened," she said. Patrick Lumumba, a Congolese barman who was briefly jailed when Knox accused him of the murder, took another view of her absence. "She is guilty, and she is running away from Italian justice," he said on the sidelines at the Thursday hearing. The Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported that Kercher's sister, Stephanie, had refused to read a letter sent to her this week by Knox. Sollecito vacationed in the Dominican Republic during the course of the trial, prompting suspicions that he planned to flee Italy, because the Caribbean island has no extradition treaty with Rome. But on Thursday morning, he was in court. “He wanted to stay home in southern Italy, but we said, 'Everyone thinks you are going to flee,' and he said 'OK, I'm coming,'" said Giulia Bongiorno, a lawyer representing him. "He has decided to face the situation. He is afraid of nothing, and his presence is a silent scream of innocence," said Luca Maori, another attorney for Sollecito.

[BlondieLeigh]

From what I have seen of the case (used to study law), it concerns me that they can convict someone with so little evidence of guilt. I can only assume there is a lot more evidence than what has been made public.

[GardenSirens]

Originally Posted by sunnykerr (View Post) I gotta hand it to her. That's actually pretty ingenious. If no one had told on her, I can't imagine she would have been caught.

That was actually pretty smart but too, too risky. Glad she got caught.

[sunnykerr]

BlondieLeigh That has been my assumption as well.

I understand the physical evidence has been all but proven unreliable.

At least, that's certainly all I've heard from the news reports.

But there may be other physical evidence we haven't heard of and I hear a lot of criminal cases aren't based necessarily so much on proof positive but rather on circumstancial claims.



Add to that the fact that this all happened in the Italian system, about which I know zilch, and it's impossible really to form an informed opinion.

Matt Obviously, it's a good thing when drug dealers are arrested.

I guess I'm just not used to thinking of them as clever, so this one "impressed" me with her ingenuity.

[BlondieLeigh]

But there may be other physical evidence we haven't heard of and I hear a lot of criminal cases aren't based necessarily so much on proof positive but rather on circumstancial claims.

I really hope there is. We're talking about three lives here. One that has already been taken and deserves justice, and two others that could very well have theirs taken away for a long time. For Meredith Kercher's sake more than anything, they need to be absolutely sure.

[Gio Gio]

Amanda Knox again found guilty in 2007 slaying of roommate in Italy - latimes.com

It's a great news. Finally some justice for Kercher's family.

[quaist]

Originally Posted by Gio Gio (View Post) It's a great news. Finally some justice for Kercher's family.

Well, we don't know whether she actually did it, plus I'm not sure the Kercher family is that convinced.

What we do know for sure however, is that it must be an unbelievably hard time for all involved.

Also, police stopped Knox's ex-boyfriend Sollecito on his way to Austria after the court had reached its verdict.

[BlondieLeigh]

I'm not sure the Kercher family are convinced either. Their lawyer is calling it justice and they've said they want her to be extradited, but they seem unsure to me. It could just be because they weren't there and can never be sure because of that, though.

Justice is needed for Meredith, and if they are guilty, then she could get that soon, but if they're not, there's a chance she'll never get it

[sunnykerr]

Well, I don't know the Kerchers nor have I ever seen/read them in interview.

So I don't know how they feel about this.

I do find there's a strange dichotomy in the U.S. criminal system if Amanda Knox isn't deported to serve her sentence.

Because they just put a Mexican national to death in Texas for very real crimes he committed, but he was a Mexican national, not an American, and there's apparently sufficient evidence that he wasn't given his full rights as a Mexican national during the trial.

Meaning his execution went against international law.

Not to mention that, as far as I know, the death penalty has been abolished in Mexico.

So, if Amandan Knox can't be deported because U.S. law says this trial was an instance of double jeopardy, why was the Mexican guy put to death when Mexican and international law say he shouldn't have been?

[Cristofle]

Well, because we're more concerned about our own laws and our own citizens, lol. Fairly gross, but true (the case of the Mexican national was reprehensible). That said, Italy is well aware of our double jeopardy policy and may not even request her extradition.

Ultimately, I think it's entirely possible and even likely Knox knows more than she's saying, but I don't think it was adequately proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

[Arbogast]

Amanda Knox 'Will Be Extradited By US'

The professor said he doubted that even double jeopardy - where someone cannot be tried twice for the same offence - will protect Knox. This is because she was initially found guilty and her acquittal was heard at an intermediate appeals level. "If that happened in the US, it wouldn't be double jeopardy," he said.

I think there is little doubt that she should be extradited. Whether she will be is another matter. I don't want to offend anyone, I have a great respect for a great many Americans, but it is a very insular country and that has a very detrimental effect on its diplomacy. I would not be surprised if they refused to extradite her, but I would be very disappointed in America as a country. Justice should be blind.

[quaist]

This will certain amount to a big judicial battle...

Apparently it's anything but sure this extradition request would go through in the end.

[sunnykerr]

I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens.

But there is a real problem here.

This can't be the U.S.'s world with the rest of us just living in it.

I get that it's the only remaining superpower. And, you know what? If there's only one superpower left, I'd rather it be the United States. I truly do.

But it can't be one set of rules for the United States and then a separate set of rules for the rest of us.

I don't know that extraditing Amanda Knox is the right thing to do either.

I'm just saying that she's been found guilty. Twice. Just because they're Italian doesn't mean their legal minds are duller. They must have had grounds to come to that verdict.

The United States waged a 20 year battle to get Ira Einhorn back home so he would face justice for his crimes.

If that was the right thing to do, why shouldn't Amanda Knox be deported as well?

[sunnykerr]

Knox's Italian attorney is apparently already working on an appeal in large part based on the judge's comments about how Knox's lack of testimony in her own defense made coming to a verdict more difficult.

Apparently, his comments also went to some degree into the fact that there was a lot of evidence to wade through and that motive was difficult to ascertain.

Sounds to me like they had evidence but couldn't figure out why Knox would murder her roommate, which gave them pause.

But, in the end, depending on what kind of evidence they had, I'm not sure we need to know the why.